Cultural Policies and Politics in Puerto Rico’s Entertainment Industry

• In Event: Structural Policies of the Media and Communication Industries of Puerto Rico

Abstract

This paper focuses on the historical development, cultural legacies, and practices of the live-music production industry in relation to the local neocolonial state in Puerto Rico and links to the Latin American and Caribbean region, and translocal networks. My main argument is that the state in Puerto Rico has been challenged in the field of live-music events production, despite its exaggerated normative way of doing cultural policy. This state of affairs is consonant with neoliberal disciplinary ways of governing that in the case of Puerto Rico have not necessarily translated into governmental cultural action, but have neither hindered a lively artistic scene. To expand on this argument, I will draw for recent dissertation research that describes the ways that the relationships between events producers and the state evolved as new local, regional and transnational players entered the live-music events production industry, particularly since the 1990s.

Author

• Anilyn Diaz-Hernandez, U of Puerto Rico at Arecibo